Section 1 - Research and analysis of available information relating to characteristics
of targeted learners.

National Studies and Statistics

In general, the reviewed national research finds welfare-assisted families moving in
and out of the labor market. Many welfare recipients report only qualifying for jobs in
low-wage, secondary markets; jobs that are often temporary, seasonal and/or part-time;
jobs offering unstable work hours and neither healthcare nor family leave benefits. The
need for basic supports such as child care and transportation assistance further limits
their employability. (Nightingale)

In an ongoing series of public policy reports, the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C.
has collected data and research profiling the U.S. welfare population. The welfare
population is characterized as mostly single mothers in their 20s and 30s with one or two
children. The population is fairly distributed among the major ethnic groups and covers a
wide range of educational attainment. Most welfare recipients have some work experience. (ibid)

A General Profile of the Welfare Population  Urban Institute

90% of welfare parents are single mothers

10% married

36% divorced/widowed/separated

54% never married

Most welfare mothers are in their 20s and 30s

6% under 20 years of age

24% 20-24 years of age

22% 25-29 years of age

35% 30-39 years of age

13% 40 years of age or older

Welfare mothers are distributed among the major ethnic groups

37% White

36% African-American

20% Hispanic

6% Other

Academic levels of welfare recipients cover the full range of educational
attainment

16% some college

42% completed high school

42% less than high school

Most welfare recipients have 1 or 2 children

41% 0-1 children

33% 2 children

16% 3 children

10% more than 3 children

Majority of welfare recipients have recent work experience

30% no recent work experience

70% some recent work experience

4.2 years average work experience

43% have worked in past 24 months

Average weeks worked in 24 months is 24 weeks

(ibid)

While 58% of TANF recipients claim to have high school diplomas or equivalencies, the
remaining 42% report not completing high school. The National Institute for Literacy
reports that the average welfare recipient reads on a sixth grade level. (NIL)
Additionally, sampled assessments of the population do not support skill equivalencies to
self-reported grade levels.

In an Urban Institute study of basic skills, almost two-thirds of welfare recipients
tested on the Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT)  a measure with strong indicators
to future employment and earnings  scored in the bottom quartile (lowest 25%) of the
AFQT distribution. Low skills correlate to low-wage jobs, and therefore to a continued
need for income supports. The report notes that women with low skills make the transition
to steady employment very slowly, experiencing long periods of unemployment between short
periods of low paying, unstable jobs. (Pavetti)

Julie Strawn of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) examined welfare-to-work
programs across the U.S. for effective strategies to break the cycling of work and
welfare.

The report, Beyond Job Search or Basic Education: Rethinking the Role of Skills in
Welfare Reform, examines how the work-first philosophy of welfare reform has shifted
programs from skills building to requiring quick employment. The quick employment programs
emphasize job search activities, whereas the traditional skill building programs provide
basic education activities. The research shows that while successful programs share a
commitment to employment as the ultimate goal, programs that have helped recipients find
better jobs placed a strong emphasis on building job skills. By contrast, neither quick
employment programs nor basic education programs have generally been able to help people
find better jobs. (Strawn)

Strawn identifies three challenges that the current generation of welfare-to-work
programs must meet to be more successful than their predecessors:

how to help the most disadvantaged recipients for whom job search alone may not be
successful;

how to help recipients find better jobs; and

how to help recipients sustain employment. (ibid)

Strawn also discerned the following principles for creating more effective
welfare-to-work programs:

Successful employment programs share a flexible, balanced approach that offers job
search, education, job training and work; that focus on employment; that have close ties
to local employers; and that are intensive, setting high expectations for participation.

Job training in classroom or workplace and access to post-secondary education are key
components for better jobs. Training must be made more consistently effective, however,
and more accessible to those with low basic skills. Job training that ends in a
certificate or a degree is more likely than job search or basic education services to
increase the earnings potential of welfare recipients.

Activities to improve basic education skills are also important but should be provided
as part of a broader range of employment and training activities.

Work can be a critical part of increasing recipients employability if it is part
of a broad range of employment and training services. It may be especially effective for
the most disadvantaged recipients.

Time limits require new ways to build skills quickly and to help low income workers,
including former welfare recipients, improve their skills and move up to better jobs over
time. First, existing job programs that are successful should be compressed into shorter,
more intensive schedules wherever this is possible without sacrificing the quality of the
program. Second, ways should be found to support long-term, full-time education and
training for low-income parents outside the welfare system. (ibid)

Low skills are the most common barrier to employment reported by welfare recipients. In
Personal and Family Challenges to the Successful Transition from Welfare to Work,
90% of welfare recipients analyzed from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth
experience barriers that limited their employment. Barriers noted in the report, in rank
order, were:

low basic skills,

substance abuse,

a health limitation,

depression, and

a child with chronic medical condition or disability. (Olson)

The most prevalent logistical barriers to successful employment, noted within this
study as well as within the national Family Support Act are:

child care, and

transportation. (ibid)

The Institute for Research on Poverty recently concluded a seven-study review to
outline and understand factors that prevent welfare recipients from working steadily and
earning a living wage. Based on the review, nine sets of potential barriers to employment
and self-sufficiency were identified:

low schooling,

little work experience,

lack of the job skills and credentials employers value,

lack of "work readiness,"

worries about employer discrimination,

mental health problems,

alcohol and drug dependence,

physical health problems and family stresses, and

experiences of domestic violence. (Kalil)

The study, Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work,
examines another significant barrier: the costs associated with going to work. Many women
report difficulties in managing the hidden costs of working, including increased expenses
for child care, medical care, transportation, housing and suitable clothing. Non-economic
costs such as accommodating parenting responsibilities and other family management issues
were mentioned. The study noted that women who were able to work steadily benefited from a
combination of "special circumstances," such as co-residence with relatives,
free childcare by a friend or relative, receipt of regular and substantial child support,
and access to transportation. (Edin & Lein)

The National Governors Association (NGA) recently released a policy study
examining support issues for welfare recipients, Working Out of Poverty: Employment
Retention and Career Advancement for Welfare Recipients. The NGA promotes the
following approaches for promoting job retention among newly hired welfare recipients:

Improve access to support services such as childcare, transportation, health care and
housing.

Provide ongoing case management to help participants cope with the workplace, the public
aid system, household problems and the social service network.

Provide supportive payments or loans to offer short-term financial assistance and
services to working families to address "emergency" situations that might
otherwise lead to job loss and reliance on welfare.

Develop effective mentoring programs to counsel newly hired welfare recipients on
managing time and stress, balancing work and home commitments, managing paychecks and
finances, accepting new responsibilities, imparting and receiving constructive criticism,
developing professional work habits, and dealing with office relationships and work
etiquette.

Promote federal and state earned income tax credits to help "make work pay" by
increasing the income of low-wage workers. (Brown, et al)

Support models are needed to assist individuals in coping with barriers. Assisting
individuals in making connections to social service agencies and to their own natural
supports of family, friends and community is a vital component to job success. The nature
of poverty means that each family faces a precarious and unpredictable level of
subsistence. Welfare recipients need connections to emergency funds and community support
services, in terms of housing stability, transportation, health care, utilities, etc., to
better meet the needs of their families while transitioning to work.

As to meeting employer needs, a recent national study examined employer preferences.
The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) surveyed 500 employers nationally, with
200 additional interviews of employers in Milwaukee and Los Angeles, for their
requirements for entry-level workers, as well as their views on hiring welfare recipients.
The survey found that employers value reliable workers with a positive attitude more than
any other quality. Employers repeatedly noted they are willing and able to teach
job-related tasks, but it is much harder to teach a person to be a good worker.

In Job Prospects for Welfare Recipients: Employers Speak Out, the Urban
Institute summarizes the ESRI study and employers responses."Education,
technical training, and even prior work experience do not appear as important as good
attitude, responsible work habits, and good references." But the report also notes
that most employers consider baseline skill levels of "reading and writing
paragraph-length material, doing arithmetic, using computers, and dealing directly with
customers" as standard requirements. (Regenstein)

Job Candidate Qualities Rated as Most Important by Employers (top three choices combined)

Source: ESRI Survey of Employers Attitudes

In another study of job retention by welfare recipients, Causes and Implications of
Rapid Job Loss Among Participants in a Welfare-to-Work Program, employers noted that
their new hires were not "work ready" in terms of understanding and following
workplace norms or behaviors. The employers reported that the major reasons welfare
recipients lost their jobs was due to failure to understand the importance of punctuality
and the seriousness of absenteeism, and to misunderstanding and resentment of the lines of
authority and responsibility in the workplace. (Berg, Olson, Conrad)

Further complicating welfare-recipients opportunities for sustainable work and
wages, employers also reported that a large share of their entry-level jobs are filled by
part-time workers (46%); and 36% of the employers said their work site was not accessible
by public transportation. Two-thirds of the employers in the national survey reported
their entry-level wages are below $6.00 an hour. (Regenstein) Even for
full-time entry-level positions, these wage rates are well below subsistence level for a
family of three.

State Studies and Statistics

Overall TANF demographics for the State of Texas parallel national statistics. The
majority of recipients are single mothers, 25-35 years of age with an average of two
children. Seventy-three percent of Texas TANF recipients reside in urban areas, with
Arlington and Houston assuming 40% of the total population. Another dense concentration of
TANF recipients is located in the lower Rio Grande Valley region where poverty and
unemployment rates are highest in the state. (TDHS)

Some 59,000 Texans (plus their families) will be forced to exit TANF by year 2000. (Lawson
& King) The Texas Council of Government Regions 2000 map shows the
concentrated locations of TANF forced-exiters:

The overall ethnic composition of TANF Single-Parent caretakers in Texas is
approximately 44% Hispanic, 33% African-American, 22% Anglo, and 1% members of other
ethnic groups. But ethnicity characteristics vary widely from region to region, as shown
in the chart below.

Ethnicity Comparison

Source: Texas Department of Human Services

In January and February 1998, the Housing Authority of the City of Austin (HACA) staff
conducted a door-to-door survey of TANF recipients residing in public housing. Below is
their chart summarizing findings:

HACA Survey Results

Household Composition

31-year old single minority female with three children.
Youngest child is likely to be younger than school age.

Educational Attainment

Typically completed some high school.

Employment Background

Not typically employed. Average total work experience is four
years, but varies widely. Previous jobs typically held for 7.5 months, and were likely in
the service industry.

Income

Average monthly TANF benefit is $190.80 and typically, there
are no other sources of income. Average monthly Food Stamp benefit is $360. Typically, the
TANF recipient is owed child support s/he does not receive.

Residents at Austins Housing Authority fit within the national mean statistics of
welfare recipients.

The Center for the Study of Human Resources (CSHR) of the LBJ School of Public Affairs
at the University of Texas at Austin  and a coalition member of the EnterTech
Project  recently released a policy study titledThe
Reality of Welfare-to Work: Employment Opportunities for Women Affected by Welfare Time
Limits in Texas. The studys findings align with national research in challenging
underlying assumptions of welfare reform. A surplus economy of low-wage, unstable and
traditionally female-dominated occupations exist in Texas. Yet pay earnings in these jobs
are insufficient to bring a family of three out of poverty. (Lawson & King)
The study concludes that without substantial improvement in wages and working conditions
at the low-end labor market or the improvement of job skills for better wage jobs, welfare
time limits in Texas will only increase the economic hardship of low-skilled parents and
their children.

As with national statistics, although 2/3 of Texas TANF recipients report completing
high school or a GED, the Center estimates that 60% of those individuals are actually
functioning below reported educational attainment levels.
(ibid)

The EnterTech Project is using Work KeysŪ as its job profiling system to determine
curricular competencies and performance objectives. After profiles are complete, Work
KeysŪ assessment tests can be used to evaluate employee skill levels and to match levels
to specific job functions. In February - May 1998, the Capital of Texas Workforce Center
administered Work KeysŪ assessment tests in the areas of "Reading for
Information" and "Applied Mathematics" to 59 individuals expressing
interest in enrolling in the JobsAhead training program, a basic job skills
training program.

Of the 59 individuals scored, 97% reported themselves as unemployed with 40% reported
as current TANF recipients. Mean scores for the group were a 4.5 reading level and a 3.8.
math level. (CAWTC) According to ACT Corporation, the creator of Work
KeysŪ assessments, the standardized levels correlate to skills as follows:

Reading for Information

Level 3

Identify uncomplicated key concepts and details;

Identify the meaning of a word that is defined with the passage;

Recognize meaning of a simple word that is not defined with in the passage;

Recognize the proper placement of a step in a sequence of events, or the proper time to
perform a task;

Recognize the application of instructions given in the passage

Level 4

Identify important details that are less obvious than those at level 3;

Apply more complex instructions, some of which involve several steps, to situations
described in the reading materials; and

Recognize cause-effect relationships.

Level 5

Understand the paraphrased definition of a technical term or jargon that is defined in
the passage;

Recognize the application of technical terms or jargon to stated situations;

Recognize the definition of a word with multiple meanings;

Recognize the application of instructions from the passage to new situations that are
similar to those described in the reading materials; and

Recognize the application of more complex instructions to described situations,
including conditionals (if X happens, then it will lead to Y) or procedures with multiple
steps.

Applied Mathematics

Level 3

Add, subtract, multiply and divide using whole numbers;

Add and subtract using negative as well as positive numbers; and

Change a number from one form to another, using whole numbers, fractions, decimals or
percentages.

Read a simple diagram or graph to get the information needed to solve a problem.

(ACT, Inc.)

But as with national surveys of employers, EnterTech Project coalition members noted
that the work-ready or "soft " skills are as important as the "hard"
academic skills.

At the July 30, 1998 EnterTech Coalition Member meeting (see Appendix A for membership
list), participants were asked to identify the most important skills and characteristics
of entry-level employees in technology companies to consider in designing the EnterTech
Project curriculum. Members ranked the following in order of importance: